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New York's Millbrook High School recently used Holocaust Remembrance Day as an opportunity for sophomore students to hear stories of three people who survived the genocide in Europe. "It's important that successive generations know the history of what led to the Holocaust and become exposed to those experiences through more than history books," said Alec Pandaleon, the event's organizer, who noted there are fewer survivors with the passing years.

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Teaching about the Holocaust has been a promise kept by Mike Madden, a history teacher at Clements High School in Texas. For 12 years, he has hosted "The Shoah," an annual event to honor his promise to Holocaust survivor Hannah Pick to teach about the Holocaust. The event features talks from survivors of the Holocaust, a screening of a docudrama about a soldier who liberates a concentration camp and student artwork. "The survivor story is the heart and soul of the event," Madden said.

Six World War II veterans, including 95-year-old Mac McLain, recently shared their stories of bombing missions over Europe, experiences being held in German prison camps, encounters with Japanese soldiers and more with a spellbound group of students at Marshwood Middle School in Eliot, Maine. "It's living history sitting right in front of them," said teacher Justin Roy. "You know, we teach out of the history books about D-Day, but when you have somebody sitting in front of you that participated in it, it makes learning come alive."

Ryan Eisenman, a senior at D.C. Everest Senior High School in Schofield, Wis., became hooked on history in the eighth grade while working on a Civil War project. Eisenman is now the leader of his school's oral history project, which has published a book of interviews that he and other students conducted with Holocaust survivors. "There has to be someone who will remember their experiences and record them," said Eisenman, who said he wants to becomes a history professor.

Teachers and students in the Athens Area School District in Pennsylvania collected objects contributed by local veterans and historians to create a World War II and Holocaust display in the high-school lobby. History teacher Amy Cheresnowsky said assistance for the display arrived in the form of the Clara H. Isaacman Memorial Trunk, which includes books, videos and other materials about the Holocaust and is named for a teacher who was a Holocaust survivor. Cheresnowsky said that over winter break her students will start reading books from the trunk, which was obtained with the help of the Pennsylvania Holocaust Education Council.

Besides being in the hot seat for meeting NCLB standards, teachers often must deal with curricular mandates imposed by lawmakers concerned about social issues or American students' global competitiveness. In many states, schools now must specifically cover such topics as the Holocaust, genocide, African-American history, Veterans Day and personal finance.